Shuffling across the carpet to zap a friend may be the oldest trick in the book, but on a deep level that prank still mystifies scientists, even after thousands of years of study. Now Princeton ...

Scientists at Northwestern University may have figured out why walking on carpet in your socks, petting your furry friend, or rubbing a balloon on your hair creates static electricity. In a new study, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — If you've been left with a sore finger after reaching for a doorknob this winter, suffering from a sharp static electricity shock, you're not alone. Erica Carlson, 150th ...

Galien Grosjean was a caretaker of tiny glass beads. He bathed them, gently cradled them with tweezers, placed them delicately in his experimental apparatus. He avoided unneeded jostling at all costs: ...

Each week, we bring you a quick and easy experiment you can do at home to explore a concept in science. This week, we explore triboelectricity.

Static electricity was first observed in 600 B.C., but researchers have struggled to explain how rubbing causes it. In 2019, researchers discovered nanosized surface deformations at play. The same ...

For centuries, static electricity has been the subject of intrigue and scientific investigation. Now, researchers from the Waitukaitis group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) ...